Did Mother Teresa sell children from her shelters in India? No, that's not true: There's no evidence to support that claim, but a nun and another worker at a shelter for unwed mothers run by Mother Teresa's charity were arrested in 2018 and accused of selling babies, The Associated Press and other news organizations reported.
The claim appeared in a post on Instagram on February 15, 2023, with the description, "The more you know." The meme in the post says:
Mother Theresa - Sold Babies & Was Used In Photo Ops Throughout The 1980's When She Was Pushed On Us As A Saint!
That's Dr. Fauci standing next to her
This is what the post looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Thu Feb 16 18:45:32 2023 UTC)
The claim the meme promotes muddles a number of things. There are no news reports of Mother Teresa being arrested for selling babies. She also was not being "pushed on us as a saint" in the 1980s. According to the Vatican website, efforts to canonize her didn't begin until after she died on September 5, 1997. The Vatican said:
Less than two years after her death, in view of Mother TeresaÂ's widespread reputation of holiness and the favours being reported, Pope John Paul II permitted the opening of her Cause of Canonization. On 20 December 2002 he approved the decrees of her heroic virtues and miracles.
The Roman Catholic nun and Nobel Peace Prize winner was canonized by Pope Francis I, becoming a saint on September 4, 2016.
